Through a Quantum Mirror Darkly
by uo-chou
Summary: When an archaeologist from our Earth discovers a quantum mirror and uses it to travel to the Stargate dimension, things will never be the same again. A third power will emerge to take part in the Ori war and beyond, changing the scape of the universe.
1. Chapter 1

Through a Quantum Mirror Darkly

_For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face _(1 Corinthians 13:12)

Chapter I

Call me Ishmael. No, seriously; that's my real name. My parents were eccentric people who had a penchant for literature and a laissez-faire attitude toward my upbringing. They supported themselves though a trust fund from my father's side of the family, old money from some invention or other at the turn of the century. I never saw much of that money, as I was one generation too far removed from the main branch of the family to get a trust fund myself. My grand-uncle Jack was a decent guy, though, and put anyone even distantly related to him through college with a full ride.

While many of my friends applied for loans and scholarships or worked part-time jobs, I had the luxury of devoting my time solely to my studies. Ideally I wanted to be an engineer, but I was never great with math so I picked up the engineering classes I could on the side and devoted myself to my second passion: archeology. I got my bachelor's degree in only three years, at the age of 20, and went back for more, intent of getting my doctorate. I traveled to South America one summer, and Egypt the next. I worked hard and started planning and writing my thesis as soon as I was able. When I was state-side I continued with the engineering classes and finally overcame some of the trouble with maths that had given me problems in the past. By the time I was ready to defend my dissertation, I had my bachelors in engineering as well. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do for a career yet, but as long as grand-uncle Jack seemed content to pay my tuition and living costs I was happy to keep learning.

Throughout my life I had few friends. I guess you could say I was kind of a loner, but I liked it that way. I loved to learn, and I absolutely loved reading science fiction and watching sci-fi movies and television shows. My absolute favorite was Stargate SG-1. I ideally dreamed about what I would do if I could be a member of the Stargate program, what it would be like to journey to distant planets and make first contact with other cultures, how amazing it would try to be to reverse-engineer alien technology or to meet an ascended being. I had no delusions that I would ever get to do these things, but it was fun to dream.

My name is Ishmael Arthur Evans, and this is the story of my ascent to Godhood… or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof.

EiEiEiEiEiEiEiEiO

Two years after graduation, I found myself working in southern Mexico, excavating a newly discovered Mayan site. I was one of the few people there who was a full doctor of archaeology, and thus had a good deal of autonomy. After the earth was cleared I began excavating what I thought might be a simple dwelling. It took several days to finish clearing the entrance. After we were done, the crew decided to break for the day to catch some sleep; everyone was exhausted. I returned to my tent and kicked back with a beer and my iPod. That night, I had some insane dreams. I dreamed that I was falling through a void of stars and becoming darker and darker until my entire body was the same lightless hue as the cosmos.

I woke up in a cold sweat. The moon hung full in the sky, so I couldn't have been asleep that long. Still, I felt well-rested, and I decided to ignore protocol and continue with the dig by myself. I headed into the unearthed entrance of the Mayan structure. It still smelled musty, but it had been open long enough for fresh air to circulate. The walls were stone, surprisingly, and not a single one was blemished by carving or decoration. I walked down the long, bleak hall, holding a battery powered lantern in front of me. I wondered what the purpose of this building could be, as I had never seen anything like this before. Eventually, the hall ended, disgorging me into a small room facing an irregular stone arch, several inches shorter than myself. On the ground in front of it was a small object that looked almost crystalline in appearance. Ignoring all semblance of archaeological protocol, I slowly reached down and picked up the device. As soon as my fingers touched it, the device lit up. I stood still, my mind racing in excitement. I examined the crystalline device; it looked like some sort of weird alien tablet computer. I brushed it with my left hand, and suddenly the odd looking archway lit up, and settled into a picture… of space.

I gasped, my heart pumping like mad. 'What the hell?' I thought. As I stared into the archway, the scene changed… I saw a picture of a spaceship moving through the cosmos, a planet in the backdrop behind it. With a gasp, I realized that I recognized the ship… _It was an X-304 from Stargate SG-1!_

Wondering what kind of insane magic was causing this to happen, I stood stock still, watching the scene change once more. The X-304 lurched to a stop, and several other ships surrounded it, sleek ships with hammer-like anteriors. 'The Asgard!" I thought. Beams of brilliant white lanced out, stripping away small segments of the X-304's hull and replacing them with more advanced looking technology. Bright white light showed through the ports on the human ship, indicating the activation of Asgard beaming technology. I realized suddenly that I was watching the events of the series finale of Stargate, _Unending_. As predicted, the Ori appeared almost as soon as the upgrades on the _Odyssey_ were finished, causing the Asgard to destroy Orilla.

Suddenly, the view changed, and I could see the interior of the _Odyssey. _I somehow knew, deep in my bones, that I was not going to get another chance. While I was watched the events unfold, I had realized what the device was; a quantum mirror similar to the one SG-1 found during the first season of that show. This one was a little different, apparently requiring no duplicate mirror to travel to. Quickly, while the mirror still showed the interior of the ship, I reached out and touched it…

I felt myself falling, and a tingling pins-and-needles feeling washed over me. I landed on something hard, and opened my eyes. I found myself, laying in what looked like one of the private quarters in _Odyssey. _There was an external viewport, a bed, a couch, and a small closet. And… Yes! A computer terminal. Smiling to myself, my mind began to whirl furiously as I planned my next course of action. I couldn't allow myself to be caught on _Odyssey_; that would be akin to a death sentence or at the very least the end of my plans. I raided the closet, and thankfully one of the USAF jumpsuits fit me, though barely.

Disguised as best as I could be, I logged onto the computer terminal, and pulled up an internal schematic of the ship. I memorized the location of the hangers and the engine room, and memorized the route between them, and the room that I was in. I hoped that I would be able to tap into the Asgard computer core from here, but if not I would have to make my way to engineering. I knew what was coming next, and I had no plans to stay onboard the ship.

Using all of the computer skills I had learned in my engineering classes and praying to whatever higher powers that may exist that the Asgard hadn't had time to setup a complex security system on the newly-installed core, I attempted to gain access. Luckily for me, the owner of the crew quarters I found myself in had left himself logged into his terminal, which made my job incredibly easier. Having no login identification for the ship's network would have required me to take one of the crew hostage and somehow get the information out of them, a plan I desperately wanted to avoid. After nearly thirty gut-wrenching minutes, I was able to connect with the Asgard core. I let out a harsh burst of nervous laughter.

I started requesting information from the core, first Asgard ship schematics. I needed a way off this ship, and on a hyperspace capable craft was my first choice. I hoped to be able to find a suitable design in the Asgard database, have the AI of the Asgard core tweak it to include their latest technology and a copy of the Asgard computer core, and use the power from the nearly fully-charged ZPM installed in _Odyssey_ to create it out of pure energy is using the Asgard beaming technology in it's "universal constructor" mode, much as they had done to upgrade the ship I currently found myself on. It was a complex plan, but it was the best I could come up with off the top of my head… and I had nothing better right now. If this didn't work then my best bet was to stay onboard the ship and try something else during the 50 years that SG-1 would be trapped in time dilation.

Browsing through the Asgard core's database was easy; it was the most responsive computer I had ever used. I guess true AIs designed by millennia-old races were just awesome like that. I quickly found the schematics for a little ship that would just fit into the hangers of the X-304, and asked the Asgard core politely to update them to reflect all of their newest advances in technology since it was designed, as well as a human-capable control interface, voice commands, and English as the ship's primary language. I then had it add a complete copy of the Asgard computer core that they placed on the _Odyssey_, without the annoying flaw that was going to nearly get the ship I was inhabiting destroyed shortly. The core worked for a few seconds, then complied, spitting out a new schematic with all of the things I had asked for. I shook my head, wondering what this marvelous piece of technology _couldn't_ do.

Next, I queried the Asgard, asking if it was possible to actually build this thing, and how much power it would consume from the ZPM. I didn't want to leave SG-1 in a lurch. The Asgard took a few seconds, and then replied that it would take under 15 minutes to build the ship, and consume less than 2 percent of the power of the ZPM. I smiled. It seemed that my little plan just might work.

EiEiEiEiEiEiEiEiO

I spent a few more minutes at the computer terminal, finalizing my plans and tweaking the specs of the ship just a bit. I couldn't tarry too long; the owner of the quarters I was in was bound to come along eventually. I kept glancing at the view port every few seconds, checking to see if the ship had come out of hyperspace yet. Frankly, I was surprised it hadn't. In the show, it has seemed like only minutes after the extinction of the Asgard that Sam Carter found the hyperspace problem on _Odyssey_ and transitioned it back into normal space. I guess, though, that the directors of the show compressed time a lot due to the airing constraints of a television show.

I programmed the Asgard computer to construct me a few additional things that I might need, and beam them directly to my location. I asked for a personal shield, a voice controlled portable beaming device, and a zat'nik'tel. When they materialized, I clipped the shield generator onto my belt and activated it, causing a white bubble to shimmer around me for a brief second and then become transparent. I clipped on the transport device and picked up the "zat gun" as Jack O'Neill was fond of calling them. I would have transported myself directly to the hangar bay, but I didn't want to be anywhere near the Asgard beams while they were constructing my ship.

I finished all of the planning I could, and commanded the Asgard core to start building my ship in the port hanger bay on a 1 minute delay. At the same time, I caused the oxygen alarm in the hanger to go off, making everyone scramble to evacuate. I activated the small program I had been working on, more of a series of commands to the Asgard core, causing it to hopefully hide the things I was doing from the crew. I had little hope it would succeed, but it might buy me some time. I monitored the reactions of the crew via the internal security system, and watched the hanger crew flee and the bulkhead doors to slam down, barring anyone entry. At nearly the same time, _Odyssey_ lurched out of Hyperspace. I began to shake with nervousness and excitement as I waited for the right time to act. I felt the ship shudder as it jinked wildly to avoid the two Ori ships attacking it. Hopefully the timing would work out for me; otherwise I would have to wait until the ship reached the planet where most of the crew disembarked to leave—a course of action which would probably lead to my death.

Finally, amidst _Odyssey's_ wild maneuverings while firing her newly installed Asgard plasma beam weapons against the Ori capital vessels, I saw the Asgard core complete construction of my ship. I activated my personal transporter and beamed onto the ship after speedily giving the hanger control system the order to open its blast doors.

I found myself sitting at the main controls of _my_ new ship. A feeling of equal parts dread and glee washed over me. The next part was going to be tricky. I powered up the ship, and began giving it commands. I first engaged the cloak, and then turned on the maneuvering engines. I slipped out of the hanger, and once clear, headed away from the Ori ships at best possible speed. They didn't detect me! Once I was clear, I went to hyperspace, shortly before _Odyssey_ did. Elation surged through my chest. I was free!

The next thing I needed were raw materials and a nice, safe place to hole up for a while. Thankfully the Asgard had mapped out the Milky Way galaxy when the Goa'uld were still swimming against the current in the rivers of their homeworld. I queried the database for a planet that would meet my needs: habitable, no Stargate, and far enough from other inhabited worlds that no one would disturb me. The core showed me a few dozen choices. I selected the closest one for the sake of convenience, and set my ship on a course for it. With the intergalactic hyperdrive installed on my vessel, I would be there within an hour.

I kicked back, finally secure for the moment, and called up the schematics of my ship to go over them in detail now that I had time. The ship was apparently called a Knarr-class vessel by the database, and before my modifications it was originally intended as a lightly armed mid-range cargo ship. According to the database the Asgard had not used them in a few thousand years due to the lack of need and the advent of the replicator war. Since they had started widely using the universal constructor they hadn't needed to haul anything except rare metals like neutronium, naquahah, and trinium, and their warships had more than enough cargo capacity for that.

With the upgrades, the modified Knarr-class ship was approximately the same mass as a Tel'tak vessel, though shorter in height and around 20 percent longer, just small enough to fit in _Odyssey's _hanger. Like most Asgard ships, the front was shaped like the head of a hammer with the rear being rectangular, ending with the engine compartment containing the hyperspace generator, and the engine pods to either side of the back. It looked rather like a squat, more rounded Biliskner-class ship.

Before the modifications the interior was nearly all cargo space, but the upgrades had changed that. The only place in the ship that had more than crawling space was the bridge and the small combination sleeping quarters and bathroom directly behind it. The bridge had just one seat, surrounded by the Asgard computer core, just enough room for me. The rest of the ship was filled by a scaled-down neutrino-ion generator and a shield generator that was nearly as strong as those on a capitol ship. Outside, mounted along the top and both sides of the ship, was a single underpowered Asgard plasma beam weapon. I had no illusions that I could take on the Ori or the _Odyssey _in this ship, but I knew it would be more than a match for anyone else I might run across.

The hull was the standard alloy used by the Asgard for their O'Neill class ships, a naquadah/carbon/trinium composite resistant against energy and ballistic weapons to a degree. The computer originally designed for the ship was not installed; instead the new Asgard core took over that function. The Knarr-class also had a standard Asgard transporter beam with the new universal constructor function, a cloaking device, and their latest subspace communications and sensor suite. The core, being a complete copy of the original, also had a built-in time dilation device.

All-in-all it was a good little ship. I had big plans for it.

EiEiEiEiEiEiEiEiO

Author's Note: I've been thinking about it for quite a while, and I finally decided to write a Stargate SG-1 fic. I read Stargate: Galactic Imperium by VexMaster a few weeks ago, and since then I've been thinking about an idea similar to him, but without any of the universe-jumping except at the beginning. Hopefully I can do something unique with this little tale. Stay tuned for further updates, and please let me know what you think of this first chapter. Like, dislike, love hate, please review! It's the only way I can improve.


	2. Chapter 2

Through a Quantum Mirror Darkly

_Twas brillig, and the slithy toves_

_Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:_

_All mimsy were the borogoves,_

_And the mome raths outgrabe_

_-Jabberwocky, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson_

Chapter II

As my ship settled down on the snowy surface of the planet I had chosen to be my first staging area, I found myself lost in thought. The last two hours had been a whirlwind of activity involving science beyond my understanding and luck beyond belief. Why had I, an almost rabid Stargate fan, been the one to stumble upon quantum mirror? And how did I manage to accidently tune it into the Stargate universe, precisely at the moment where I would have been most likely to get away with a copy of the Asgard core, probably the most useful piece of technology to humans in this entire universe?

I could only assume I had been brought here by some power beyond my understanding, for some purpose I could not yet fathom. Deciding to be pragmatic, I decided there wasn't anything I could do at the moment and proceeded with the plan I had thought out at the beginning of this crazy escapade.

Phase one of my plan was to activate the time dilation field. That would give me the one commodity more important that anything else: time. I told the Asgard computer core to engage the field within a one hundred mile spherical radius. The core advised me that the neutrino-ion generator would be able to power a field that size continually as long as it had enough fuel… apparently it converted hydrogen to naquadria via a complex multi-stage fusion process, and then somehow broke the naquadria down as fuel. The core brought up technical specifications, but I had neither the education level nor the patience to go over them right now. I had the AI set the time dilation ratio to 1:10000; for every day that went by in the greater universe, I would have 10000 days within the field.

Phase two included harvesting the resources of the planet I found myself on. To that end, I had queried the device about how the Asgard mined the resources that they used in their construction. It provided the specs for a mining drone equipped with beaming technology as well as anti-gravity earth movers and lifters. According to the database it was energy intensive to beam minerals directly out of the ground below thousands of tons of dirt, but once the veins were exposed it would take little power. I ordered the core to make several dozen of the small drones and set them to work immediately harvesting neutronium, trinium, and naquadah, all of which were in plentiful supply on this particular planet. Any other elements could easily be synthesized from dirt and air, but for the super-dense neutronium, and to lesser extent heavy elements like trinium and naquadah; it was far easier just to mine them. It was not as rich as Orilla, but then again, there was a reason the Asgard chose to make it their homeworld. There were very few planets to begin with that had any decent deposits of the super-dense mineral that the Asgard valued above all others; it was created very rarely when a super-giant star collapsed in on itself and became a neutron star.

While the mining drones began their work, I plotted phase three, which I would take advantage of dilated time to accomplish. I intended to build the production facilities to construct two entire fleets of powerful spaceships. In the Stargate series, Earth never really used the technology the Asgard gave them. I never really understood why, though there were more reasons then I had fingers and toes to count them. I decided it was a combination of the ignorance of Earth's leaders (The IOA especially), their unwillingness to change their ways, and a lack of resources and energy production facilities. There was also probably a healthy degree of caution involved—it makes sense to understand a technology before you dive headlong into it, and it would take Earth decades to even begin to make headway into the Asgard database.

I had no such compunctions about using the technologies of the Asgard. I don't know what that says about either me, or the Earth as a collective. At least my intentions were mostly noble. I planned on building at least one hundred ships, and gifting them directly to Earth. In the Stargate universe I could never understand why the Ori didn't just fly to Earth and put an end to one of their strongest enemies in the entire galaxy… That's what I would have done if I were a milky white space-priest, anyhow. I hoped that my entry into this Galaxy hadn't caused any "butterfly-effect" type situations, including the aforementioned doomsday scenario, but I was going to do my best to hedge my bets, and the bets of the Earth in this universe.

OK, so I was going to build them at least one hundred capital ships, more if I had the time and resources. That should allow them to actually go on the offensive against the damned Ori, and probably the Wraith as well. It should also go a long ways toward ingratiating myself with them, and would pay them back with interest for the power and information I borrowed from the _Odyssey_. I also planned on installing hyperdrives in the ship constructors I would build so that I could give them to Earth as well, as a way of maintaining and growing their pre-made fleet.

I also intended to build vessels for my own use, in order to help exploit the future knowledge I possessed. I doubted that the events leading up to Stargate Universe were going to occur now, with the changes I planned to make to the time stream. I also planned to shut down Baal before he had a chance to travel back in time, stopping the events in Stargate Continuum from happening as well. The events of Ark of Truth were tricky; I wasn't sure how I was going to handle them yet, but I figured that preparing while I worked it out wouldn't hurt anything. All-in-all it was a tall order, but I hoped to accomplish it. Concurrently, I hoped to help with the situation in the Pegasus galaxy, but those plans would come later.

For now, I would be busy enough.

Days went by, for me, and then weeks. For company, I used the holographic projector in the Asgard core to conjure up several of the stored consciousnesses of the Asgard people stored it its memory to talk to. I met Thor, Heimdall, Kvair, and even Loki, among others. The consciousnesses were animated by the processing power of the computer rather than an organic body, so they didn't act exactly like biological intelligences; rather their personalities seemed somewhat flat and lifeless. They were company of a kind, however, and I had no one else. I grew to like them.

I learned tactics from Thor, and as much science as I could absorb from the others, which turned out to be quite a bit, surprisingly. My engineering background was really paying off now. There were practical limits to what I could grasp, however; the Asgard didn't really need calculators or even simple computers, as their advanced brains seemed to perform functions that even the most intelligent human would need electronic assistance with. In turn, the Asgard insisted that the Alterans, the progenitors of humanity and the most advanced race that the known universe had ever seen, were at least as far beyond them as they were beyond me. I realized just how far humanity had to go to reach these intellectual giants. I wondered it our evolutionary progress could be somehow jumpstarted with the help of Asgard or Alteran knowledge, but I was unwilling to experiment at this point. It was dangerous to meddle with the DNA of sentient creatures, as the Asgard had discovered, and I simply had too much on my plate for that. I did set the Asgard core to working on a problem during my first day of time dilation, though; I needed a way to live a long time, as it was going to be quite a while before everything I had planned would be complete, and I didn't want to die of old age in the middle of it all.

While I learned science from one of the most advanced races to ever exist, I was also working on my own ideas. It had been proven time and again in the Stargate universe that humans had a unique perspective on problems that even advanced species like the Asgard and the Nox weren't capable of thinking up on their own. Specifically, in the area of war, the human race seemed to excel, in both design and execution. The Asgard were no slouches themselves, and had even exceeded the Alterans in this regard, but humans really seemed to shine when it came to thinking up ways to destroy things.

The first problem I applied myself to was that of spacecraft to spacecraft combat. Almost every engagement in space by advanced species employed the use of energy weapons as the main component of their offensive, and energy shields as their main defensive tool. Some species changed this up by using missiles, notably the Alterans, with their guided drones capable of phasing through most energy shielding and matter, and humans, using conventional nuclear warheads. Species like the wraith didn't use energy shielding, but rather an organic hull that could be powered up in some manner, and which could regenerate very quickly. I thought about the problem for over a month, until I hit upon a concept which help in the fight against the enemies of humanity.

Drones were an effective weapon, but the explosions they caused had a fairly small yield, requiring several of them to destroy even a moderately sized ship. They were also beyond the Asgard's level of technology, so were not a possibility for any ship I created at this time. I could probably have one of the Asgard scientist consciousnesses create something similar to a drone, but I doubted it would be half as effective as the real thing. I would have to acquire one at some point to see if it could be reverse-engineered.

For now, I decided to try something completely different. I worked with Heimdall on this project, as she was one of the more friendly Asgard minds. My ideas was to create a missile which could travel through hyperspace, and emerge _inside_ an enemy's shields, or even in the interior of their ship, completely bypassing their defenses. Heimdall was unsure if the idea could work, as nothing like this had ever been tried to her knowledge. We worked on the details for several months, and determined that the weapon, which I decided to call a skipper missile, was theoretically possible. The higher bands of subspace which were used to travel faster than light ignored all physical phenomena in the regular universe, so energy shields should be no exception. The main problems were navigation, size, and complexity. The missiles would either need to have a complex sensor suite installed in them, they would need to be pre-loaded with coordinates by the ship launching them, or they would need to be in continuous contact with their launching ship in order to guide them. Next was the issue of powering them; hyperspace took a lot of energy, even for short hops. It shouldn't be too bad as they were only jumping a few million miles at most, but it was a consideration. The last issue was size. With all of the systems they would need, as well as the warhead, the components would either need to be miniaturized or the missiles were going to have to be larger than traditional.

Loki expressed an interest in working with us on the problem, so Heimdall and I included him in the design process. Evidently this was a copy of his personality from before he went bad and started experimenting on other sentient beings, so I was happy to get his help. It took us around a year to design the Mark I Skipper Missile, but between the three of us we created a working prototype. The Asgard computer core had been interfaced with the _Odyssey_ before I had copied it, so it had already had a chance to download the limited Human database the US Air Force kept onboard their ships. This allowed me to have the description and most of the design specs for their latest warhead, the Mark IX, which was capable of causing an explosion powerful enough to peel back the crust of a planet. Of course, the Asgard were easily able to upgrade that, using their superior knowledge of nuclear fission and naquadria reactions to increase the explosive power a great deal. The missile by itself would severely damage the shields of any known space faring race species if it were to impact them, excluding perhaps the mighty shields of an Alteran City-Ship. If it were used as intended and bypassed the shields via hyperspace this would be a one-hit one-kill weapon. I was hoping the Skipper would be a game changer, but if not at least it was a non-conventional and powerful addition to the standard armament of the vessels I was working on.

While I was working on developing never-before seen defensive and offensive technologies, I was also working on building the mightiest ships that Asgard technology was capable of producing. Before I even began drawing up plans, I again examined other space faring species to determine what types of ships I would need to build. Truthfully, I found it odd that many species, including the Asgard, tended to take an all-in-one multirole approach to their fleets. I guess much of it, for the Asgard, could have been the replicator war and the fact that their species wasn't very numerous. The Ancients, though, only seemed to have a few different types of ships. They were powerful, don't get me wrong, but they had gaps in what kinds of jobs they could perform. Neither species seemed to have a dedicated fights, or apparent point-defense weapons, instead relying on their powerful shields to protect them. As a result, they didn't have any sort of carrier or reasonable facsimile thereof. There were also no frigates for this same reason; no need for an anti-fighter class of ships if there are no fighters. They were mostly limited to battleships and science vessels, though each vessel was very multi-role.

That set me to wondering if fighters would actually be useful when taking into account the current technological level I had to work with. Thor and I discussed it in-depth, and we decided later than fighters did serve a useful purpose in space combat, even if just to counter other enemy fighters. They were also excellent ground support for plant-bound engagements. The Ori and the Wraith both fielded a fighter, which was the last argument I needed to construct one, and the accompanying larger craft I would need to deploy and compliment them.

Thor helped me design a fighter craft using the design specs of the O'Neill class, incorporating all of the advances in sublight engines, inertial compensators, and power generation that the Asgard had learned since they last built personal fighter craft. We also fixed a flaw that I had always found quite baffling and annoying on spacecraft; forward mounted weaponry. The fighter ended up being shaped like a disk with a sphere in the middle, where the pilot would sit. The disk was around five meters high, and six wide. The Asgard scientists working with me on the fighter found a way to scale the new plasma beam weapon down, and at my instructions developed a new type of emitter for it that wrapped around the outside edge of the disk, allowing the weapon to be fired from any point along the circumference of the craft. Enemy craft on your tail? There _is_ no tail!

The technology that propelled the fighter was the standard gravimetric sublight engines that all Asgard craft used, but scaled appropriately for the fighter. The Asgard engines were a marvel, their gravimetric nature allowing all of their craft to be much more maneuverable than Goa'uld, Ori, and even Alteran counterparts. They were not as fast as Alteran engines, however, which could with enough power reach over 99% of the speed of light. The gravimetric engines were unique in the species the Asgard had met, allowing their ships to reorient almost instantly, changing directions on a pin. This was a crucial feature, along with the 360 degree weaponry, that would allow the craft to have a very special feature which I will describe later.

The power source for the fighter was the main issue the Asgard found with my design. For the past several centuries they had been using neutrino-ion generators for all of their spacecraft, as they were the most prolific and compact form of power generation the Asgard had yet perfected. The problem was that the smallest a neutrino-ion generator could be scaled down to and still function was roughly half the size of the fighter in diameter, and twice it height. Heimdall and I toyed with using liquid naquadria directly to power the fighters, but it was an unappealing prospect as the naquadria would have to be prepared ahead of time, stored, and pumped into the ships. Liquid fuels had gone the way of the dinosaur millennia ago for species like the Asgard, and they weren't keen on designing a craft that utilized them. There was also the volatility of naquadria to consider; the amount required to power a craft like the one we were designing would make one hell of an explosion if the craft got hit. Luckily, there was an alternative power source, one that was relatively new to the Asgard, having just developed it prior to their extinction: what Humans called the "Asgard power core", a device that pulled energy directly from subspace. It was extremely small, roughly the size of a softball, and could not be scaled up or down in size. It did, however, provide nearly as much energy as a mark-I naquadah generator, making it an ideal power source for the fighter. Because they were so small, and relatively easy to produce, we were able to incorporate four of the subspace energy sources into the fighter. This allowed us to install a fairly strong shield generator, something which most other fighters lacked. The shield wouldn't be powerful enough to take shots from capital ships, but it could easily withstand sustained fire from other fighters. The shield generator could also be set in cloak mode, allowing the ship to disappear from view and from the sensors of most other craft.

The hull of the fighter was the basic naquadah/carbon/trinium composite alloy used for all Asgard space construction, which I learned was called _hlíf_ by the Asgard. The final feature of note on the fighter was the cockpit, which I felt extremely ingenious in designing. It was completely spherical, and wasn't actually connected to the rest of the ship physically, but was suspended in a weak gravimetric field generated by the main body of the craft. The cockpit was connected with the rest of the ship via subspace like with laser backups, ensuring that it could not be jammed. The cockpit had it's own independent inertial dampers, and special software developed by the Asgard which allowed the cockpit to spin in any direction, allowing the pilot to reorient himself without actually changing the orientation, speed, or direction of the craft! This, combined with the omni-directional firing arc and the gravimetric engines made the craft more maneuverable than anything else in space. The cockpit contained the shield generator, one of the subspace power generators, and a weak maneuvering engine, allowing it to become an escape pod in the event the craft sustained too much damage.

Looking over the completed design, even the Asgard appreciated the sophistication and originality of the craft. If it performed half as well as I though it would I would be ecstatic. For ease of use by human pilots, it had a mental link similar to that used by the Alterans, but did not require the ATA gene. For redundancy, there were physical controls as well. The Asgard were able to design the mental link using me and other humans that they had scanned as templates. Once the prototype craft was finished, I tested it out and it worked flawlessly in the atmosphere of the planet. In-space tests would come later. I was also pleased that the ship was just small enough to fit through a Stargate. Heimdall named the new fighter class _Skjótr_, which apparently meant "swift" in Asgard, as well as ancient Norse.

The design for the fighter complete, I decided to tackle the other end of things, and design my battleship. These would probably end up being the most numerous ships I would build beside fighters, as they were necessary to counter the multipurpose battleships that most other enemy forces utilized as their main vessels. I considered just modifying the already-powerful O'Neill class warship that the Asgard had recently designed, but like I stated earlier, I disliked ships which had artificially limited firing arcs. There was no reason to assign an up, down, backward, or forward orientation to space construction, except where it made sense to do so. It did not make sense to do so on a fighting ship.

I started with a spherical hull, as that provided the most opportunities for firing solutions, and provided an opportunity to increase shield protection using another idea I came up with. The hull of the ship would have a radius of 250 meters, giving it less of a target profile than the O'Neill class while giving it over 3 million more cubic meters of internal space to working with. The ship was also layered, like an onion, with most of the vital systems of the ship like the shield generators, neutrino-ion generators, and control computers buried deep inside the core. The bridge was also buried in the core of the ship, allowing for maximum protection for the crew manning the craft. All other personnel were located fairly deep in the craft as well.

The outer layers were reserved for weapons systems and the actual shield emitters, as well as a thick later of _hlíf_, acting as armor for the craft. The outer layer of armor was laced with pure naquadah tubes leading to enormous capacitors, acting as an energy-sink, to displace the heat and electricity from directed energy weapons, should they get through the shields. The craft was ringed by six scaled up omni-directional Asgard plasma beam weapons, each of them capable of firing in 360 degrees along the axis it was places on, giving the ship the ability to fire in any direction with multiple plasma beams.

There were also six launch bays for skipper missiles, each located equidistant from each other across the surface of the sphere. Each of the missile bays was fully automated, and held one hundred missiles. Six hundred skippers was a ridiculous amount, but we had more than enough space and they cost fairly little in resources to build. My philosophy is that it's better to have too much than too little. The skippers could be launched singly or in volleys of up to ten at a time from each bay, with a reload time of less than twenty seconds thanks to Asgard automation systems and beaming technology. Once the skippers cleared the shields, they were capable of immediately going to hyperspace and seeking their targets. There was a brief window of opportunity for enemy ships to destroy the missiles at that point, which was mitigated by the point defense weapons of the ship. The ship had sixty point defense turrets, Asgard pulsed energy weapons of the same type used at the main guns of the O'Neill class ship, only scaled down to 10 percent of their original power. They had been tweaked by the Asgard scientists to fire four times as rapidly, though, making them excellent anti-fighter and anti-missile batteries. The ship contained all the standard Asgard computer systems, as well as sensors, communications gear, and other necessities.

Though not intended as a carrier, my battleship design did contain two hanger bays, each capable of housing either ten _Skjótr_ class fighters, or two _Knarr_ class transports/freighters. Because there were no physical entrances to the ship, the compliment of Asgard beams which would be used for moving all personnel and supplies was upped from the fifteen on the O'Neill class to sixty. The Hyperdrive was the latest that the Asgard had designed, nearly identical the model installed on the O'Neill, as were the sublight engines. Because this ship would use more power than the O'Neill class, the compliment of neutrino-ion generators was increased from four to twelve, equally spaced throughout the core for maximum redundancy.

The shield designs were the most revolutionary thing on this ship, which was mainly composed of already tested technologies. They were standard Asgard shields, though beefed up to take advantage of the additional power supplied by the extra neutrino-ion generators; the big difference was that there were three of them instead of just one line normal. The inner-most shield was set to the median frequency possible for Asgard shields, and hugged the hull very tightly, being less than one meter from the _hlíf_ armor. I had built the entire ship with this in mind, as a means of protection from weapons like adaptive energy weaponry and Alteran drones. Drones worked by phasing through energy fields, but before they could do that they needed to determine the frequency of the shield by impacting it. My theory was that if presented with multiple layers of energy barriers with differing frequencies, it would make it much more difficult for the devices to penetrate. The second layer of shields used a frequency on the high end of possible frequencies, and the third used one on the low end. Each shield was an autonomous system, so if one was destroyed the next would still be able to function. Considering that Asgard shields could go toe to toe with any other power in the known universe, I felt confident that these battleships would be well protected.

The last major systems worth mentioning on the battleship class were a high powered wide-spectrum subspace jammer, capable of interfering with any know subspace frequency know to the Asgard, and the particle beam emitter. The particle beam emitter was a recesses device that could be made ready to use by retracting a section of the hull which took up around one percent of the surface area of the sphere. It was a device that could be configured to emit beams of different types of energy and particles, such as the replication disruptor beam.

The design of the battleship, for all of it's might, took only nine weeks between myself and a team of six Asgard scientists and engineers. I liked the Norse theme I had going with ship names, so I decided to name the class _Hringr_.

EiEiEiEiEiEiEiEiO

By the time I had designed the first two of my ship designs, and completed trials of the first few skipper missiles, I had been in time dilation for almost four years, with only the Asgard consciousnesses for company. Not that they were bad company, but I was hungry for interaction with other humans. For a self-proclaimed loner, I sure didn't want to be alone right now. I was grateful that I would be able to make my first move fairly soon. As soon as the plans for the other classes of ships that I intended to build were complete and I had my first battle group finished, I was intended to rendezvous with a pair of Ori battle cruisers… and rescue the _Odyssey_ before SG-1 got trapped in time. Since the moment I had arrived in this dimension, I had experienced four years… but to the universe outside of my time dilation bubble, it had been less than six hours.

EiEiEiEiEiEiEiEiO

Author's Note: Whew! I just wrote up a storm. I hope you all like tech specs and the descriptions of ships as much as I do. ;) There's going to be more of them next chapter, but subsequent chapters should herald more action. I'm building a foundation here, people, so please bear with it. I hope you like my ideas for spacecraft using Stargate technology; I've been thinking about them for quite a while. Anyhow, you know the routine, please read and review. Ciao.


	3. Chapter 3

Through a Quantum Mirror Darkly

"_There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it."(Edith Wharton)_

Chapter III

I worked hard on the remaining ships I needed to design. I didn't want to be trapped in time dilation for any longer than an additional two years at the very most at that point. I would be happy if I could leave tomorrow, but the designs for my armada were not yet complete, leaving huge gaps in the roles my vessels could perform, and thus limiting the strategies I could plan and the tactics I would be able to utilize.

I got to work on my carrier next, wanting to get it out the way first. This ship was going to be a dedicated carrier, but that didn't mean it was going to be toothless; it was destined to be much more than just a shell with shields and a hyperdrive, designed to ferry around fighters. Still, it didn't need to have much in the way of weaponry considering it's function, so I didn't need to make the hull a saucer or a sphere. In fact, considering that the more fighters it could launch and recover at once, the more effective it would be, I designed a ship with a lot of surface area and just enough in the interior for the systems needed to sustain it. The ship was "cigar" shaped, much like a zeppelin airship from Earth's history. The carrier was exactly three thousand meters long, and half of kilometer thick, bulging with individual fighter bays on either side, each protected by it's own individual semi-permeable force field. If a fighter had the proper software key, it would be able to pass through the force field as easy are if it were air.

In the way of armaments, it had four traditional Asgard plasma beam turrets, one on either end, one on the top, and one on the bottom. Like all of the other ships, the hull was made out of _hlíf_, like every other ship I was building; I would continue to use this alloy until I found something better. The ship was made to house five thousand fighters, and came complete with beefed-up life support systems and barracks for all of the pilots. I also included entertainment facilities, a nearly hospital-sized sickbay, and exercise and bathing compartments scattered liberally throughout the ship.

As pilot lives were incredibly valuable, I also incorporated a new technology which I hoped would help protect them; a remote control feature for their fighters. Each pilot was issued a neural band that when placed around the head, would allow them to project their consciousness into their fighter as if they were actually there. If the fighter were destroyed it wouldn't have any impact on the pilot, allowing them to learn from fatal mistakes, something that had never been a part of traditional warfare. I used a subspace channel that the Asgard assured me many other species were incapable of utilizing, and backed it up with several others for redundancy. Still, a concerted effort to jam faster-than-light communications could cause the links to fail. As a less than appealing backup mode of communication, I also installed a massive laser communications array on the carrier, which was capable of simultaneously keeping in contact with all of the ships at once, though the further the fighters were from the carrier the worse the delay would become due to relativistic constraints. It was mostly installed as a means of retrieving the fighters in the event of enemy jamming, until pilots could physically enter the fighter craft. To this effect, the carrier also had 500 Asgard beaming devices installed, allowing all of the craft to be loaded with pilots within twenty seconds using the beams.

Each single-ship hanger facing outward was also a launching tube. Using an inertia-less launching system, all fighters could be disgorged from the ship simultaneously and with great speed. They could all be simultaneously recalled as well. This was not a standard feature on most carriers due to the fact that they doubled as battleships for most species, requiring a thick, strong hull. Because my carrier was never designed to go directly into battle to engage other ships I could get away with lessening it's structural integrity. Still, below the hanger and weapons deck there was a thick layer of _hlíf _armor to protect the vulnerable crew and ship's systems. I used the same triple-shield systems, though it's protection was lessened as it didn't hug the hull like the battleship. I knew that the Alterans had developed hull-contoured shielding without loosing any of its protective powers, but like most species the Asgard's shield technology worked best when shaped like a sphere. The other major feature of this ship was that it would have a ship repair and production bay, capable of churning out new fighters as fast as raw materials could be fed to it. This would allow the carrier to continue with missions even if it lost a large amount of its fighters. I loaded it with enough neutrino-ion generators to perform it's role and then some, providing it with a compliment of six. Working off of my past experiences and utilizing the help of the Asgard, I was able to complete this design in only two months. Thor took a liking to this class of ships, and named it the _Mjöllnir_ class, after the first ship he commanded.

Next, I wanted to design an anti-fighter frigate. It didn't need to be complicated, but it did need to be effective. To perform it's role well, it would need to be able to take damage from a large number of fighters, and be able to in turn destroy them. I again turned to the trusty sphere as the hull shape, it providing the best possible profile for a space-faring anti-fighter platform. I decided to kill two birds with one stone, and make this ship a bomber as well as an anti-fighter frigate, as I had little need for a dedicated bomber due to the skipper missiles overlapping the role such a vessel would take.

I gave the hull of the frigate a radius of 15 meters, allowing it to have a total internal volume of over fourteen thousand cubic meters. I installed a single skipper missile launch bay with the same specifications as the bays on the _Hringr_, one of the two armaments it would utilize as in it's role as a bomber. I also installed two full powered O'Neill class pulsed Asgard energy weapons, which were the other "bomber" component, being much more powerful weapons than would normally be equipped on a ship of this size and class. That was already a ton of firepower for such a little ship, and I hadn't even installed the anti-fighter weapons. I literally covered the remaining surface with old-fashioned Asgard ion guns, the same weapon they had used in the old _Biliskner_ class ship. I was able to fit a total of 128 of the small but deadly pulse weapons.

Though they were out dated, there were a few reasons I chose ion guns. They could be modified to have a higher rate of fire then any other Asgard weapon, they were more energy efficient then either the O'Neill class pulse weapons or the plasma beam by a wide margin while still packing enough of a punch to one-hit one-kill fighters and other small craft. They would also be excellent for suppression fire if they were used in a planet-side role. This class would have an intergalactic hyperdrive as well, as it was not meant to be docked with a larger ship. Unlike it's larger cousins, the frigate would only have a single shield, like the fighters, though it was far more powerful. I completed the design with two neutrino-ion generators and a five dozen Asgard power cores for backup, as the two generators were barely adequate for to power all of the systems of the ship, but were all that could fit in the small hull. With the addition of the subspace power cores, the ship had more than adequate power. I'll admit I farmed most of the design for this ship out to my Asgard helpers, and it surprisingly only took a little over a month. Hermiod, the foul mouthed Asgard who once served on _Daedalus_, named this class _Bogi_, or bow.

It was time to design the last standard ship in my fleet; the cruiser. Basically, its role would slightly overlap that of the battleship, though it would be less powerful and much more versatile. Because this would be the ship class of choice for covert operations, I chose to design the hull to mimic the most common capital ship class in the galaxy; the Goa'uld _Ha'tak._ To that effect, it shard the _Ha'tak's_ shape and dimensions, being pyramidal with an outer "ring", and being 700 meters in length, 650 meters in width, and 315 meters high. There were several changes in the configuration of the hull, however.

Unlike a standard _Ha'tak_ class vessel, the pyramid section of the ship would not be hollow, allowing for a much larger interior space. Also, the coloring of the ship would be different; I had it colored solid black, with smart-paint, an old Asgard invention which allowed the paint to act as a crude display screen. Using this feature would make the ship hard to pinpoint with visual sensors, and allow it to blend into the backdrop of space like a chameleon.

The cruiser got a compliment of full powered O'Neill class energy blasters, four in total, as well 60 of the scaled down 10 percent power variety of this weapon, located in the same emplacements where staff cannons would be on a Goa'uld vessel. There were enough _Ha'taks_ with upgrades done by Anubis, Apophis, and Baal floating around the galaxy that it's increased firepower might be considered plausible.

To further mimic the _Ha'tak_, an upgraded Goa'uld shield was installed at the top layer of the cruiser's triple layered-shield, causing the well-know yellow-orange visual effect. The second and third layers were Asgard shields, however. Concealed beneath slide-away panels were five Asgard plasma beams, each at one of the points of the pyramid, giving it a decent firing arc. The interior of the ship was well shielded with pure neutronium, hiding all energy readings from the equipment inside and making the ship appear as little more than a chunk of rock on sensors. This used over 30 percent of the internal space, and made transporting in and out of the ship require over four times the power as normal, as well as requiring a transport beacon to have enough sensor resolution to direct a matter stream through the thick layer of super-dense matter, which is why it was not a standard feature on any of my other ships.

The ship ran off of eight neutrino-ion generators, and the spot that was used to launch naquadah bombs on a _Ha'tak_ was actually a cleverly disguised skipper missile bay of the standard variety, with a compliment of 100 mark I skipper missiles. Being a true multiple role vessel, the cruiser contained a hanger bay with twenty Knarr class ships and eighty _Skjótr_ class fighters. My cruiser design also incorporated a powerful cloaking function into the Goa'uld shield layer, allowing it to disappear from all but the most powerful sensors entirely. This vessel also performed another function that none of my other ships so far had; it would be a troop carrier. Using the extra space in the ship I was able to design quarters and facilities for over five thousand troops, though they would be cramped if they were quartered indefinitely. The twenty Knarr class ships on-board were not the insanely upgraded version used for my daring escape, but rather stripped out versions containing only one ion gun as it's weapon, a weak shield, and limited support systems. The hyperdrive was a limited interplanetary system, only capable of slow speeds. It was powered by twenty Asgard subspace power cores in order to free up more space. This allowed the little ship to have standing room for fifty troops as well as two pilots, making it a decent troop landing ship in the event the Asgard beams couldn't be utilized for some reason. The hanger bay also acted as a universal constructor, allowing for the repair of damaged fighters and shuttles as well as the creation of new ones.

There was a compliment of 15 Asgard transportation beams, and my cruiser had the best stealth systems the Asgard could design, allowing the cruiser to be one of the few decent stealth ships in this Galaxy. It also incorporated a smaller version of the subspace jamming device in the battleship, and two of the particle/energy emitters I had designed for the battleship.

Though the cruiser was only perhaps fifty percent as powerful as the battleship in a direct fight, it had many surprising features and could be used in almost any role in a pinch. I decided to name it the _Sleipnir_ class after the eight legged horse of Norse mythology. Heimdall gravely assured me that the legends were based on an actual animal from Othalla, the original Asgard home world, and that before their industrial revolution the Asgard had rode them around like humans with horses. I was an amusing incident, and reminded me that though they were currently only existent because of a piece of technology, the Asgard were real people with a rich history.

Because of the complexity of the design, it took over eight months to design the _Sleipnir_ class cruiser. With it's completion, I was finally ready to implement my plans.

While I and the Asgard consciousnesses were thinking up designs for ships, running simulations, and refining our ideas, the mining drones had been extremely busy. In the five years I we had been working, they had mined nearly the entirety of the neutronium, trinium, and naquadah from the planet, leaving only small deposits that were not worth exploiting. I had commanded them to restore the natural habitat of the planet as they worked, and as a result the beautiful snow covered landscape was unchanged. Except for the new mountain range ringing the valley where I had first landed my ship, which was composed entirely of the above-mentioned minerals. There was enough there to make up a small moon; much more than I could use at the moment.

Once significant amounts of raw materials were available, I had the Asgard core create some constructor drones, which were much like the mining drones but capable of finer matter manipulation, and specialized for construction. I created them by the hundreds, and set them to the task of creating ten multipurpose construction docks for the ships that would follow. By this time I had increased the time dilation filed to encompass the entirety of the planet and several hundred miles of space around it, powered by twenty neutrino-ion generators which the constructor drones had built. This allowed the construction docks to be built directly in space. They were designed from the outset to be spacecraft themselves, huge bulky ships over five kilometers long and four thousand meters wide, powered by an even two dozen neutrino-ion generators. They also had a huge cargo bay, capable of storing millions of tons of heavy minerals to use as the base material for construction of the ships they would create. The construction ships had an energy based version of a the classic "ram scoop" idea from science fiction, in order to gather enough hydrogen to keep their neutrino-ion generators supplied with enough fuel for their hydrogen to naquadria fusion process. I named these mobile ship construction platforms S_míða _class ships. Theyhad limited weapons and standard triple-layered shields to help protect them, as well as a cloaking function.

I gave orders to the Asgard consciousnesses to build prototypes of all of the ships, to run tests on them to make sure they lived up to their design specs, and to fix them if they didn't. I then prepared to leave in the original _Knarr_ class ship I had arrived in. I took off from the surface of the planet, and shortly reached the edge of the time dilation field. I instantly transitioned to normal space. I reached the edge of the solar system, and waited less than two hours in real time. Suddenly, the ship's systems indicated that I was once again in a time dilation field. I queried the sensor array, and learned that the star system I had made my base of operations was filled with artificial structures now. There were boosters for the time dilation field at regular intervals, as well as neutrino-ion generators powering them, which the Asgard had built at my instruction, enough to allow the whole system to be be out of phase with regular time. My plan was coming along nicely.

The two years had been productive ones for my Asgard helpers. I landed at my base of operations on the surface on of the planet, and got an update on our efforts. They had constructed multiple prototypes of each vessel types then run them ragged with tests. Flaws were found, albeit few, and after they were corrected to the best of the technologically superior race's abilities, the prototype for each ship class underwent a complete sub-atomic scan by the enormously powerful sensors of the ship constructor platforms; all ships that came after would be exact duplicates of the originals, which would hopefully cut down on problems in my fleet. It would also be a simple matter to effect changes to the molecular recipe for each ship virtually, enabling the fast deployment of new ships with upgrades or changes in the future.

Thor also informed me that my personal task force was complete. It consisted of eight _Hringr _class battleships, six _Sleipnir_ class Cruisers, six _Bogi _class anti-fighter frigates and two _Mjöllnir _class carriers, as well as my flagship, something I had been working on in my spare time since the beginning of my self-imposed exile into time dilation. It was meant to be the most powerful vessel in my fleet; I called it the Sverð, or sword. I had incorporated the best improvements from the rest of my fleet into it, and more.

I returned to the sphere design, though the size was greater then even my battleship class. I designed the hull to be 1 kilometer in diameter, making the ship 2 kilometers thick. This allowed the interior to have over 4 billion cubic meters of internal space, enormously greater then any of my other ship classes; actually, there was so much internal space in this hull that all of my other ships could fit inside of it comfortably with plenty of room to spare.

The main guns were Asgard Plasma Beams, though I had commanded the Asgard to scale them up as much as possible until they hit the point of diminishing returns. This resulted in each beam being more powerful then all of the beams on my battleship combined, though they used an enormous amount of power. They were fired from modified emitters, similar to the model utilized by my battleship which were wrapped around the entire circumference of the spherical ship's hull. There were six of these main guns, each of which was powered by two dedicated neutrino-ion generators. I projected that each of the beam weapons would have over twenty times as much firepower as the Ori capitol ship's main weapon. Overkill maybe, but you never know when you might need something like that.

As far as other armament went, the ship also contained 16 standard skipper missile bays, each with a compliment of 100 missiles. For point defense, I installed 1024 O'Neill-class puled energy weapons, though they were modified from the original specification. Each of them was 90 percent as powerful as the original, but they were modified to fire over four times as fast. With this armament alone I should easily be able to take down an entire fleet of enemy ships. Acting in concert, the energy weapons of this ship could tear apart a planet as well, giving me another strategic tool in my arsenal; not that I intended to go around destroying worlds.

The defensive systems were as good as I could make them. I included all of the hull upgrades I had used on both the _Hringr_ and the _Sleipnir. _The outer hull was a naquadah energy-sink with a layer of _Hlíf_ underneath, 100 meters thick. Below that was a solid layer of neutronium, affording the ship another layer of protection while making it's energy output invisible to sensors. The outer layer was covered in smart-paint like the _Sleipnir_, making it nearly invisible in space to the naked eye. There were also numerous other stealth systems on-board, designed to fool sensors of all types.

Like the main weapons, I had also had the Asgard scale up the shields to their maximum possible levels before diminishing returns made making them more powerful non-viable. They had been able to take them much further then they had been able to upgrade the plasma beams; the new shields generators could take at least ten times the punishment as the model installed on my battleship, though they were more hungry for energy then any system the Asgard had ever designed. I used the same triple-layered approach to shielding that I had done on my other capitol ships, making my flagship capable of taking major punishment.

I didn't need the flagship to be a carrier, but I like options so I included two hanger bays. Each bay would contain 120 _Skjótr _class fighters and 20 _Knarr_ class ships. One of the _Knarr_'s was the first ship I had built years ago (relative to me) in the hanger bay of the _Odyssey_, in case I ever needed to do a runner.

The Sverð also had a powerful subspace jammer, capable of making it impossible to enter hyperspace in an entire planetary system, or utilizing any form of faster-than-light communication. I incorporated two particle/energy beam emitters as well. I incorporated a cloaking feature into the outer shield layer as well, rounding out the design.

As a result of all the upgraded systems the Sverð would utilize a total of 64 neutrino-ion generators, which produced a staggering amount of energy on a level I could barely comprehend. It was almost assuredly the most powerful ship in the Milky Way galaxy at the present, and I aimed to keep it that way; the Sverð would be a unique ship.

If I would have been alone, truly alone, I would have had a massive problem; how to crew all of the ships I had created? As it was, there was a very easy solution. Each ship except for the fighters in my task force was equipped with an Asgard computer core, so I used it to it's full potential. I linked Asgard computer cores to the command computers of each ship and let a crew of virtual Asgard run the ships. I added loyalty protocols, and only let experienced ship captains run each vessel. The fighters were more of a problem; there were over 10,000 fighters in my fleet between the two carriers and other ship-holding vessels, and the Asgard minds hadn't piloted fighters in years. I found they didn't really care to start doing it now either.

I delegated the problem to the Asgard, and they were able to come up with an interesting solution. Each being millenia old, many of the Asgard had actually piloted fighters centuries ago, though they were quite rusty at it. They created what was basically an artificial Asgard mind and loaded it with a gestalt of all the strategic knowledge and memories of piloting that their collective species had, as well as a desire for self preservation and to obey commands from myself and the virtual Asgard ship captains. The artificial pilot would also derive extreme enjoyment from piloting well and obeying commands, making it much more receptive to it's function. The Asgard then had the collective networked computers in all of the ships randomize trivial details of each "pilot", adding variety to them so that each one wouldn't fly identically. These pilot personalities were loaded onto Asgard computers capable of running them to their full potential and beamed into each fighter, making them ready to launch at a moment's notice.

Everything was finally complete, and it was time to implement the first part of Phase 3: Saving the Odyssey.

I docked my personal _Knarr_ class ship with my flagship, and had myself beamed directly to the bridge. I sat down in the command char and slipped on my neural band, integrating my consciousness with the ship. I was instantly aware of every system on board in a matter so personal and intimate that they felt like extensions of my physical body. I _knew_ that every system on board was functioning correctly, and faintly thrumming with power. My mind felt more capable then ever before, like I could do anything; I guess adding more processing power then ever conceived of by humans directly to my mind would do that to a guy.

I mentally connected with all of the other ships in my fleet and queried them for ship status. They all reported back ready, so I had them plot a course for the planet where _Odyssey _was fated to meet the Ori, and form up around the Sverð. We began moving through regular space to the edge of the time dilation field.

While I was gone, I commanded the Asgard minds in the _Smíða _class mobile shipyards to being construction of the new fleet for Earth. I didn't feel right giving them the same ships I had made for my own use, except for the fighters, so I had them begin building them a fleet of ships that shared the same hull configuration as the X-304s, with several modifications. The people of Earth would probably call it the X-305, for all of their creativity. The reasons I was not sharing everything with them were three fold; First, I wanted humanity to have a place to go from here. Second, like all people who have invested a great deal of effort into a creative endeavor, I was a bit selfish about giving them away for nothing. The third reason was that my ships were just too powerful for Earth right now. Some idiot in the IOA might decide to be an idiot and begin subjugating inhabited worlds or something. They would get to the point my ships were at eventually, but not yet.

The X-305 was made of_ hlíf_ instead of the alloy Earth used, and the sensor arrays and communication systems were raised to Asgard state-of-the-art. The ship hull was fairly small, so I could only incorporate 2 Neutrino-ion generators, and that was with the removal of the original oversized naquadah reactor and all of the inefficient 20th century systems that weren't needed on an advanced ship; copper wiring, ventilation ducts, and such.

I replaced the point-defense rail guns with Asgard ion guns, due to power constraints. I replaced the X-302 fighters in the hanger bays with _Skjótr _class ships; due to their smaller size and the fact that they could be turned on their sides and stored like the discs they were, each bay was able to accommodate 30 of them. The fighters could not be entered by any method other than beaming anyway, so hopefully the humans of this universe wouldn't have a problem with the way they were docked.

The single shield generator of this vessel was upgraded to the maximum the two neutrino-ion generators could support, however like almost all technology if a ZPM was inserted in the X-305 they would work better. The last modifications were to the control systems and the engines. I upgraded the hyperdrive to the latest Asgard Intergalactic Hyperdrive, and replaced the reverse-engineered Goa'uld sublight engines to Asgard Gravimetric sublight engines. To the standard, human-built control systems I added a neural interface so that officers on the bridge and engineering could control the ship directly. I also added a neural band to the pilot's barracks in order to allow them to control their ships remotely. The last feature was a standard cloaking device that worked just fine without a ZPM. This class of ships was basically what the Asgard would have made if they were given the original design specs of the X-304.

I programmed the construction ships to build a total of 200 of them for Earth, as these ships were underpowered compared to what I had originally planned to provide the Earth. Also, I only gave them one _Smíða_ class Mobile Shipyard, and the modified Asgard core on-board it was programmed to only create more X-304s, though it could repair any ship and/or upgrade it's specs to that of the X-304. They could build their own ship construction bay at any time, if they wanted a different class of ship to use. Hopefully the limits I placed on the one _Smíða _I was giving them would motivate Earth's leadership to begin using their new Asgard technology.

As my fleet reached the edge of the star system I was now calling simply "Home", all of my ships transitioned to normal space and went dropped into Hyperspace. I had a rendezvous with SG-1.

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Author's Note:

Wow, finally done with this chapter. It feels like it took forever. Hopefully you enjoy reading it at least as much as I enjoyed writing it. Finally, there will be some action next chapter! I know, I was planning to write it here but I found a good stopping point that resulted in a decent cliff-hanger. Keep reviewing and I'll keep writing! This story practically falls off of my fingertips.


	4. Ship List 1

Technical Specifications of the Ships Designed by Ishmael Arthur Evans

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_**Skjótr **_**class Space/Air Superiority Fighter**

Strategic Role: Space/Air Superiority Fighter

Hull Shape: Saucer

Dimensions: 5m high x 6m wide

Engines: Asgard Gravimetric sublight engines

Fuel: None

Power plant: 4 Asgard Subspace Power Cores

Shielding: Single-Layered Asgard Shields

Hull_: Hlíf - _ naquadah/carbon/trinium composite

Control System: Manual Controls / Human Neural Interface / Remote Control via Subspace

Countermeasures: Cloaking Device, Self-destruct, Dark colored hull, Targeting Jammers

Armament: 1 Omni-Directional Asgard Plasma Beam

Minimum Crew: 0

Additional Systems:Detachable rotating cockpit

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_**Bogi **_**class Anti-Fighter Frigate**

Strategic Role: Anti-fighter platform, Bomber

Dimensions: Spherical, 15 meter diameter

Engines: Asgard Gravimetric sublight engines, Asgard Intergalactic Hyperdrive

Fuel: Hydrogen

Hyperdrive System: Intergalactic

Power plant: 2 Asgard Neutrino-ion generators, 60 Asgard Subspace Power Cores

Shielding: Single-Layered Asgard Shields

Hull: _Hlíf - _ naquadah/carbon/trinium composite

Control System: Manual Controls / Human Neural Interface / Remote Control via Subspace

Countermeasures: Self-destruct

Armament: 100 Skipper Missiles, 2 O'Neill-class Asgard Pulsed Energy Weapons, 128 Asgard Ion Guns

Minimum Crew: 0

Additional Systems: Asgard Transporter Array

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_**Sleipnir **_**class Multipurpose Cruiser**

Strategic Role: Battleship, Light Carrier, Stealth Ship, Troop Transport

Dimensions: Pyramidal with outer ring, 700m long x 650m wide x 315m high

Engines: Asgard Gravimetric sublight engines, Asgard Intergalactic Hyperdrive

Fuel: Hydrogen

Hyperdrive System: Intergalactic

Power plant: 8 Neutrino-ion generators

Shielding: Heavily Upgraded Goa'uld shields, Double-layered Asgard Shields

Hull: _Hlíf - _ naquadah/carbon/trinium composite

Control System: Manual Controls / Human Neural Interface

Countermeasures: Cloaking Device, Self-destruct, Smart-paint hull, Subspace Jammer, Neutronium shielding

Armament: 100 Skipper Missiles, 5 Asgard Plasma Beam Turrets, 4 O'Neill-class Asgard Pulsed Energy Weapons, 60 10 percent powered O'Neill-class Pulsed Energy Weapons

Minimum Crew: 1

Additional Systems: Asgard Transporter Arrays, Particle/Energy Beam Emitter, Fighter/Shuttle Construction Bay, Stealth Systems, Hanger Bay with 20 _Knarr_ class ships (Personnel Carrier Version) and 80 _Skjótr _class Fighters

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_**Hringr **_**class Battleship**

Strategic Role: Battleship

Dimensions: Spherical Hull, 250 meter diameter

Engines: Asgard Gravimetric sublight engines, Asgard Intergalactic Hyperdrive

Fuel: Hydrogen

Hyperdrive System: Intergalactic

Power plant: 12 Neutrino-ion generators

Shielding: Double Strength Triple-layered Asgard Shields

Hull: Hull: _Hlíf - _ naquadah/carbon/trinium composite

Control System: Control System: Manual Controls / Human Neural Interface

Countermeasures: Self-destruct, Subspace Jammer

Armament: 600 skipper missiles, 6 double-strength Omni-Directional Asgard Plasma Beams, 60 10 percent powered O'Neill-class Pulsed Energy Weapons

Minimum Crew: 1

Additional Systems: Asgard Transporter Arrays, Particle/Energy Beam Emitter, 2 Hangers bays each with either two _Knarr_ class ships or 10 _Skjótr _class Fighters

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_**Mjöllnir **_**class Carrier**

Strategic Role: Carrier

Dimensions: "Cigar" shaped hull, 3 kilometers long x 250 meter diameter

Engines: Asgard Gravimetric sublight engines, Asgard Intergalactic Hyperdrive

Fuel: Hydrogen

Hyperdrive System: Intergalactic

Power plant: 6 Asgard Neutrino-ion generators

Shielding: Triple-layered Asgard Shields

Hull: _Hlíf - _ naquadah/carbon/trinium composite

Control System: Manual Controls / Human Neural Interface

Countermeasures: Self-destruct

Armament: 4 Asgard Plasma Beam Turrets

Minimum Crew: 1

Additional Systems: Asgard Transporter Arrays, 5000 _Skjótr _class Fighters in individual outward-facing hanger bays/launching tubes, Additional secondary armored hull beneath Fighter bays, Fighter ship construction bay

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**Sverð class Super-Dreadnought**

Strategic Role: Flagship

Dimensions: Spherical Hull, 1 kilometer diameter

Engines: Asgard Gravimetric sublight engines, Asgard Intergalactic Hyperdrive

Fuel: Hydrogen

Hyperdrive System: Intergalactic

Power plant: 64 Neutrino-ion generators

Shielding: Maximally upgraded Triple-layered Asgard Shields

Hull: Hull: _Hlíf - _ naquadah/carbon/trinium composite

Control System: Control System: Manual Controls / Human Neural Interface

Countermeasures: Cloaking Device, Self-destruct, Smart-paint hull, Subspace Jammer, Neutronium shielding

Armament: 1600 skipper missiles, 6 10x Powered Omni-Directional Asgard Plasma Beams, 1024 90 percent powered, 4x fire rate O'Neill-class Pulsed Energy Weapons

Minimum Crew: 1

Additional Systems: Asgard Transporter Arrays, 2 Particle/Energy Beam Emitters, 2 Hangers bays each housing 20 _Knarr_ class ship and 120 _Skjótr _class Fighters

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_**Smíða**_** class Mobile Shipyard**

Strategic Role: Mobile Shipyard

Hull Shape: Cylindrical, semi-enclosed

Dimensions: 5 kilometer length x 4 kilometer width

Engines: Asgard Gravimetric sublight engines, Asgard Intergalactic Hyperdrive

Fuel: Hydrogen

Power plant: 24 Neutrino-ion Generators

Shielding_: _Triple Layered Asgard Shields

Hull_: Hlíf - _ naquadah/carbon/trinium composite

Control System: Manual Controls / Human Neural Interface / Remote Control via Subspace

Countermeasures: Cloaking Device, Self-destruct

Armament: 4 Asgard Plasma Beams Turrets, 12 O'Neill class Asgard Pulse Weapons

Minimum Crew: 0

Additional Systems:Asgard Transporter arrays, Ship construction bay


End file.
